To think that just because people have the "workmen in" doesnt give them the right to act like

[lucyellensmum]

...condescending arseholes and treat my hubby like the little man who does!!!

I am so angry about this, i know that technically i am being unreasonable and its not the actual thing that annoys me, its the attitude behind the thing, if you get my meaning.

The person involved probably does MN but i really couldnt care a shit, and besides this may be one of my lasts threads, i shall start another thread to explain myself for those who are interested.

My DP is a carpenter, he is struggling to get his business off the ground and he is BUSY! Busy and stressed. So, after my DP making these people the most amazing bespoke cupboards and bookcases at a ridiculously cheap price, more or less acting as a bloody childminder to the womans son, she is soooo going to recognise herself, i dont care. He also is asked to make a deck in the garden. So, he puts other work behind to do this, said people piss off on holiday leaving the garden in such a state that DP couldnt start, delay! Come back, condescend to help him move their shit. Then, and this is the bit im spitting teeth about, DP runs out of wood, one, no two peices left to do, doesnt show, its safe, no big deal, one would think. DP said, would come back to do it, client offered to transfer payment into DPs account (DP and i breath sigh of relief, can now pay mortgage). Now DP wasnt prompt in returning to do the job, slightly irritating i suppose but he needed to travel to a timber merchant which was out of his way to get two bits of wood so decided to pick it up next time he was there getting stuff. So, we gets a phone call from client, oh well i will pay for the book cases but i wont pay for the decking til you come and finish it. DP says fine while i inwardly seethe. The money for the cupboards was not transferred as promised, with the consequence that we missed our mortgage payments and incurred £80 bank fees. Now the job is done and the money, hopefully is being put in today (unless they read this i guess!).

Now technically, i think this was appropriate because you dont pay for things until the job is finished. BUT these people know DP have had lots of work done by him before at ridiculously cheap prices. I feel they have always taken the piss myself. They act all pally pally in order to get low prices if you ask me, and then they treat DP like they dont trust that he will return to finish the job, when it was just a case of him fitting it in with the mountains of other work he has to do. I will absolutely put my foot down and refuse to let DP do anymore work for thse people - oh and if you are reading this - move your own fucking freezer or pay some other poor workman to do it, my DP is not as much of a mug as you take him for!

End of rant i think, but i really do get pissed off with the way people think they can treat people working in their homes as if they are servants. I mean, that is how it feels some times. Now to be fair, most of the people DP does work for are lovely and always pay on time and treat him with respect. He is after all a skilled craftsman who they coudlnt have their lovely homes without.

So yes, i know technically, no money til the job done, but the attitude of this guy was out of order, patronising and made my blood boil. I actually think client was stalling as they didnt in fact have the money to pay for the work, else they would have payed for the cupboards when they said they would. What made me even madder was the fact that DP didnt even ASK for the sodding money.

Lucy I completely sympathise with you and your DP, both my DB and DF are plumbers and have trouble like this all the time. Although to be fair a lot of the jobs they do dont take such a long time (Burst Pipes and Blocked toilets ect)

The amount of customers who do not pay on time,or accept a quote and then when the job is done ask if they can pay half now and half at a later date.

It makes meso angry , as both my DB and DF worked hard to get the business off the ground and are very good at what they do.

But as you say the majority of customes are lovely and really happy at being able to get a tradesperson to their home to do the work that they want doing.

Hope your DP's business does well, and I am wishing you and DPlots of luck.

nappyaddict it wasnt the non payment, rather the attitude of him phoning dp and saying "oh i can pay you for the cupboards but not for the decking as it isnt finnished, when DP hadn't even asked for the money" it showed a level of mistrust that my DP did not deserve. Needless to say they will not be benefiting from his services again.

i don't think it shows mistrust. we have regular builders and carpenters. once they hadn't finished and they were paid in full and then they took the piss about coming back and took forever always squeezing it inbetween other jobs cos they'd already been paid. we trust them to come back and finish but now if they haven't finished a percentage is held back to ensure they hurry up about finishing it. i actually think they were being nice on offering payment when you hadn't asked for it. although obviously to then mess you around and not pay you is out of order.

"i think it was about two weeks between him finishing the job and putting the last bits of wood in."

thats an absolute joke no wonder they didn't pay him. i'd imagine he moved a bit quicker when he realised the money wasn't coming which tells you all you need to know.
if your husband thinks he is doing work too cheap for them tell him to charge more, but don't think that it excuses terrible work practices on his part.

Sigh, well I'm in the opposite position, the house is a complete kip as it's old and needs soo much work, I have a toddler and heavily preggers too. I just can't get ANY good builders in, but we only pay when job is done, and if it wasn't and the guy didn't show for 2 weeks, I'd be well blardy pissed off. If a builder quotes me a price, and I think it's cheap/reasonable, then I'll accept it, it's not like I'm going to say 'Well sorry Mr Carpenter, I know you run a business, but I think I should pay you more'. No, I'll take the good price if he's silly enough to quote it. Sorry but while they may have been rude, your DH quoted the low prices, and didn't finish the job for 2 weeks (which would be a long time if you know it's not done and can't get hold of the carpenter..). So yes, they are entitled to withhold the money if you ask me. If you withhold all the cash, then you know the guy will turn up again...His mortgage payments should be the incentive to complete the job, and not my business.. I think you need to get your DH to start acting more business-like, and not get treated like a doormat. Sorry if you don't like this, but that's my HO.

the man - terrible work practice? Are you on the same planet as me? One peice of wood, out of sight, making no difference to the job? He wasn't going to be asking for money until the job was done, they offered to pay up front - LEM makes note not to allow DP to do work for anymore condescending twunts.

My DP is thorough and precise and finishes jobs to perfection. That is why people should be bloody grateful that HE condescends to work in their houses at a reasonable price. They were basically paying budget prices to the a top notch job, business is like that, DP is getting established. He has now developed a good reputation and does not the sort of bullshit - i certainly do not expect him to be treated like the little man that does. I would rather the people have not paid anything until the job was complete - after all that is what he usually does. I just rather think these are wannabe middleclass idiots who like to make themselves feel authoratative.

"the man - terrible work practice? Are you on the same planet as me? One peice of wood, out of sight, making no difference to the job?"

look either the wood is needed or it is not.otherwise why would your husband waste money on unnecessary supplies?it is without a doubt terrible work practice to leave a job sitting there unfinished for two weeks because the supply shop was out of his way.

"My DP is thorough and precise and finishes jobs to perfection."

i refer you again to the quote at the beginning of my post.
thorough,precise and finishes jobs to perfection?is that including the two weeks they are left incomplete?
as i said before if your husband agrees to the price (and i honestly couldn't give a damn what his reasons are e.g. establishing a name) then he should honour his commitment, no one forced him to agree to the price.

Luxman, it is a shame you don't live in my area, i could recommend you a good builder - My DP. He will charge you a fair price and do a good job. He wouldnt dream of asking for money up front, other than to cover his costs. Yes he has charged economically in the past but not any more as his reputation precedes him and people must expect to pay a premium. As for him being unprofessional and unbusiness like? How business like is it for thse people to bugger off on holiday leaving him to clear the garden of all their shite (including a fridge freezer FFS) before he could do the job . He didnt do it, i wouldnt let him.

I do agree with you totally regarding the fact that so many poxy builders start a job and then go off and do something else returning sometime in the distant future. My hubby never does that and gets really annoyed when people do so. This tends to happen alot with the bigger firms who employ carpenters etc as they put them on one job one day and because they are so disorganised drag they guys off to another job the next because the ever patient client is now on their case to get the job done.

I take offence at people refering to my DP as "silly" - he may not be highly academically qualified, however he is probably the most intelligent person i know and most of my friends have PhDs and degrees.

So i do recognise that there is two sides to the coin as shoddy work practices get my goat. The circumstances behind my rant were particular to this clients condescending attitude rather than withholding payment (which is fair enough IMO i would have done the same). They treated him like the little man, if you had read my original post you would have realised that they agreed to him popping back to put the last bit of wood in at a time when he had bought it from the builders merchant that was completely out of his way. He didnt ask for payment but was offered it. Some people are so far up their own arses it just astounds me.

the man, are you bitter and twisted because of past experience with shoddy builders or are you always so condescending and arrogant?

i refer you to your condescending comment "look either the wood is needed or it is not.otherwise why would your husband waste money on unnecessary supplies?it is without a doubt terrible work practice to leave a job sitting there unfinished for two weeks because the supply shop was out of his way. " Obviously the wood was needed, it finished the job off just lovely. It was just a simple agreement that DP would return and finish the job when he could, he is busy. I totally agree that the job should be 100% complete and satisfactory before money changes hands. I have no problem with that at all - it was their attitude, which as i said in a previous post, i cannot describe here. What infuriates me is the way they pretend to kiss DPs arse when the job is done saying how much the appreciated such a fantastic job and how they know it was an inconvenience to him to finish it. Not an inconvenience, it wasnt finished. I probably, in my waffly rant mispresented my problem as really it was nothing to do with money being with held.

He spent another two weeks chasing people for money for completed jobs, it goes with the territory. People watch too much Phil and Sarah and think they are big shot property developers when they dont have a fecking clue. Then they have to pay people like my DP to put right their bugger ups, go out of their budget and struggle to make payment. So it works both ways.

I just don't understand why people cannot respect that my DP is a skilled worker, just as they are in the jobs they do and would hope not to get treated like a lacky as he doesnt. Actually, he thinks i am being unreasonable.

"Obviously the wood was needed"

"One peice of wood, out of sight, making no difference to the job"

in your own words.

and how am i being condescending in expecting someone to finish a job properly if they want to be treated as proper professionals?
as you say we all wanted to be treated with respect in our work, and if someone was to treat me like shit where i worked i would not work there.

the man, i think you'll find the correct english is: If someone were to treat me like shit!

So ner ner ner ner.

I DO agree with you, but you wasn't there when the patronising prick phoned my hubby and said all this, cos if you were then you would see what i mean. Well, hear what i mean. So really, is it unreasonable for me to expect you to know what the feck i'm talking about ??? Well? Is it?

Oh .

Actually, you are right, the guy is just a nob and probably cant help sounding patronising. But it was in the tone of his voice you see!!!

As you can see, im not exactly taking myself seriously any more. I am sorry for getting personal and calling you condescending, but if you could have heard the tone of my voice you would have understood that i was half joking.

Oh? You mean you can't hear me? Can we be friends now? Can we? And if i get DP to condescend to perform his carpenteric wonders in your property i promise to make him finish the job in one go and not to leave, eat, shit or piss til he is finished.

Seriously though, i do take on board what you are saying, i dont think it was apt for me to post this here because as i should have been able to predict people didnt get where i was coming from. Why? because my english is appaling and i didnt make myself clear. But i AM sorry for being aggresive towards you i certainly didnt mean to be.

I thought you were leaving.

so did i but then the big bad man upset me

Fair enough!!

"the man, i think you'll find the correct english is: If someone were to treat me like shit!

So ner ner ner ner.

I DO agree with you, but you wasn't there "

i mean really, so soon after giving out about my grammar.
and don't worry you didn't hurt any feelings. everyone takes shit in their work, but you just have to suck it up and make a decision on wether or not the business is worth it.you say your husband has worked for them before, so he should know what they're like and what to expect.

well you weren't!!!!!! [poking tongue out]